While Kim Kardashian West has altruistically hand-cuffed herself to the advancement of prison reform, her billion dollar image thrives on the imprisonment of impressionable fans bound by the shackles of illusory beauty standards and body images. On account of first degree brainwashing and exploitation, perhaps, Ms. West is focusing on the wrong kind of prison reform.
A recent Independent article entitled, “TikTok’s corset challenge, the Kardashians and Spanx: Are waist trainers ruining your insides?” reminisces on TikTok’s popularized “corset challenge” that took the app by storm in April of this year. The challenge involved TikTok users squeezing themselves into restrictive corsets and lip-syncing to the Broadway musical hit song “Haus of Holbein.” When the song’s stanza echoes, “no one wants a waist over nine inches” the users would cinch the corset tighter, creating a dangerously hour-glass shape. The scary anatomical dimensions of this shape is an ode to Kim Kardashian’s 2019 Met Gala look in which her skin-tight, seemingly wet and sculptured custom Mugler dress was in fact beautiful, but her unnaturally cinched waist stole the show.
When Kim Kardashian announced her commitment to social justice and her subsequent journey to becoming an attorney, the responses were polarized. Some applauded her for using her platform to promote something greater than selfies and shapewear, while others found it to be an abstruse divergence into a world that she had no business entering. Whichever side of the fence you may be on, there's no denying the strides that she’s made thus far: from her revealing documentary entitled Kim Kardashian West: The Justice Project, to the successful release of formerly incarcerated inmate Alice Marie Johnson, her White House visit during the Trump Administration, and her most recent advocacy to halt the execution of Julius Jones.
While all eyes have narrowed in on Ms. West’s dedication to reforming one American prison system, another type of imprisonment lurks under the guise of fancy documentary debuts and presidential photo ops.
For the sake of transparency, I myself am a fan of Kim Kardashian. In fact, I am a former employee of hers. That’s right, two years ago I interned for Kim Kardashian West. I commuted from my USC dorm to Calabasas and entered the illustrious gates of Hidden Hills to report for my shift 3 times a week. I got the inside scoop of what the envied “Kardashian lifestyle” is actually like. In meeting Kim during my first week on the job, I was awestruck not only by her doll-like beauty, but also her kindness and her discernible work ethic. In short, Kim is not a criminal, but she may be a person of interest. This essay is not to be misconstrued as an attack on Kim Kardashian’s philanthropic accomplishments or a defilement of her willingness to mend a very broken system. Truthfully, this is an admirable and necessary pursuit that requires fortitude, diligence, and passion - all of which Ms. West has proven to possess time and time again. Rather, this piece is meant to challenge our conceptions of imprisonment and complicity, while offering the notion that we must remain vigilant to threats of detention beyond traditional criminal incarceration.
Unfortunately, the corset trend is not an isolated occurrence. There has been a general rise in plastic surgery and body augmentation procedures within the last decade. The recent surge of Brazilian Butt Lifts (BBLs) is evidence of this.The procedure is one of the deadliest of any cosmetic surgeries and involves fat being liposuctioned from the patient’s flanks, tummy, and lower back and injected into their derrière. According to the Aesthetic Society, in 2020, 40,320 buttock augmentations were performed. According to Google keyword data, “BBL” was searched roughly 200,000 times per month between January and May 2021. Additionally, a recent report revealed that 27,000 lip augmentation procedures were performed last year (that’s nearly one every 20 minutes), and that patients have more treatment options than ever before.
When successful plastic surgeon, Dr. George Sanders, was asked about his opinion on what has caused the surge in body augmentation, he attributed it to the influence of celebrity culture and claimed that many patients bring in photos of the Kardashian sisters as reference photos.
Earlier this year, during the sequel of the Keeping up with the Kardashian’s reunion, host Andy Cohen asked the family if they feel that they are complicit in promoting unattainable beauty standards for women. Kim Kardashian expressed her disagreement by stating that “we [the Kardashian family] get up, we do the work. We work out.”
Whether the work is actually being done by themselves or their plastic surgeons is neither here nor there. But having the unmitigated gall to publicly deflect any complicity in perpetuating beauty standards that are somehow only magically achievable by the rich and famous is dangerous and irresponsible.
The trendy desire for a nonexistent waist, protruding hips, and fish-like lips is no doubt an imprisonment of the mind and body. The beauty industry needs reforming in the same way that our prison system does. Those who contribute to sustaining this kind of “beautification penitentiary” need to be held accountable in the same way that we hold a suspect of a crime.
If Kim Kardashian can identify the ills of imprisonment in America but not the ones taken into her own custody, is justice truly being pursued? There is no bailout for those who seek selective virtue. It is time to fight for the reformation of how we perceive beauty in America, freeing our society from the iron cells of delusive beauty standards.
I really enjoyed this post. I feel like this is a topic many women and young women can relate to the topic. Kim had such an influence on the generations below her because she was really one of the first to change her look by plastic surgery. Many women and young women should be comfortable in their own skin.
I agree with your point that Kim Kardashian should seek to reform spaces where she has experience, knowledge, and credible influence. It seemed a bit performative when she announced that she would go into social justice, since there are millions of scholars seeking to implement change from compiled research and years of studying specialized fields who would arguably be a much better fit to amend the criminal justice system. While certainly Kim has her influence to keep her aspirations of being a social justice advocate/ lawyer alive, she can do a lot more good in the fashion and beauty industry instead of further pushing an unrealistic body image to her young fans.
I love your writing, I tell you this all the time. Anyway, I think this article is fantastic and I love how you drew parallels between her philanthropic efforts and the body image discussion that the Kardashians are often the center of. I think BBL culture is definitely a problem that social media perpetuates and that the Kardashians served as the culprit for. I also find it really interesting how there are multiple layers which complicate Kim's work: an aesthetic, physical identity that people associate with her, and her intellectual, deep, intrinsic work. As you mentioned, whatever people think about her prison reform efforts, it's very interesting to mention and explore a person who is known for their physical attributes…
This is SO incredibly written. You brilliantly tie Kardashian's classic brand to her newfound self and accurately expose the faults of both. Speaking more to Kardashian's impact on the world, the fact that one person could singlehandedly be the face of a beauty standard is mindblowing, and you illuminated that point perfectly in your post. We all speak around and about Kim K and implicitly understand her impact on the world, but we rarely dive into specific instances of her influence on others. I am also in AWE of your experience working for Kim and would love to hear more (as much as you legally can). This is an incredibly well-written piece and I look forward to reading through the…
The issue of perpetuating unrealistic and unhealthy beauty standards is so incredibly prevalent now because of how easy it has become to get plastic surgery and work done, and the way in which celebrities and influencers continue to perpetuate the false notion that they look this way "naturally". Particularly for younger girls, it is so detrimental to be fed lies by not only the Kardashians but celebrities like Bella Hadid and Madison Beer that they are "all natural", when it is not true. There's I think an aspect where you can look at it as people do not owe others an explanation - they don't need to confirm nor deny - that is their prerogative. However, explicitly lying about it…